The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1887-11-19
THE VERSATILE MAN.


A Myriad Minded Individual Known All
Over the Land.
Swift T. Totum was the most versa
tile man l ever saw. Talk Of myriad
minded Shakespeare! Why, Shakes
peare wasn't patch to Totum Totum
had more minds in half day than
Shakespeare could boast of during his
mortal career He would swing around
through the entire realm of the arts.
sciences and humanities as readily and
as swiftly as the New England wealth
ercock will describe the horizons cir
Gle. and he would go around the former
quite as often as the New England
weathercock makes its circuit in search
Of the wind that blows.
Swift I. Totum was, in fact Won
derful mana wonderfully wonderful
man. not to make it too strong-and i
have wondered what the world would
have done without him. Totum
wasn't one Of your machine men. who
spend their existence in one con-
tinuous, monotonous movement; not a
bit of it. He was a grand and COM
prehensive machine shop, laboratory.
atelier. studio and study rolled into
one. There was nothing which he
hadn't been into-and out of-and the
only cloud upon Totums life was the
comparatively small number OF ave-
nues which the world of matter and
the world of thought opened up to his
superabounding versatility.
Meet Totum early in the morning
and you found him filled to overflow
ing with. say, scheme to ameliorate
the condition Of pastry cooks; an hour
later he was deep in the investigation
of some recondite theory of his own
relative to the ancient sun-myth; at
MONDAY he was immersed In some
grand business enterprise; the after
noon was given to the elaboration Of
some alleged discovery in physics; the
political regeneration Of the world oc-
cupied his evening hours, and he re-
tired dreaming Of an inchoate patent
process which was to revolutionize the
custom of wearing stockings inside
ones boots instead of outside.
And then there was nothing small or
secretive about Totum. Whatever he
did, or rather whatever he began to do,
he invariably took the 'werld into his
confidence. He wasn't the man to
shut himself up in secret when he had
one of his vast enterprises on foot He
loved company; the more Of 1t he had.
| the better; and he would kindly talk
over his impending scheme for hours.
or as long as any one would listen to
him, and then-why. by that time his
prolific mind had given birth to some
new idea which completely over
Swallowed and dwarfed its predecessor.
| grand as that had seemed when viewed
by itself
Totum never started out to sharpen
lead pencil or draw the cork out Of
an ink bottle but he had at least half a
dozen wondering spectators. and.
though it usually ended in somebody
else sharpening the pencil and
in somebody else drawing the cork.
that fact did not initiate against his
greatness 1t only showed that mind
like his. teeming with redundancy o.
ideas, was so trammeled by time and
occasion that it was impossible fol
him to put any of them into concrete
form.
For like reason Totum never sue
ceeded in learning a foreign language
ancient or modern. though he hat
made many essays in both directions
and his having in literature was Of tn
flimsiest description. while his infor
nation upon the practical. affairs o
life was exceedingly tenuous. Hi
mind was constructed upon SO grand
scale, and he attempted so much AM
so many things. that he could not phi
himself down long enough to one sub
ject to master it; he could not i'm
prove one opportunity without losinl
hundreds of other opportunities.
If Totum could have divided his col
poreal substance into a thousand dis
tinct individualities, he would easil
have furnished them all from his ow
brain with vocations and avocation
sufli cient to last them all to the crac
of doom. 1t was really too bad in Prov
dence to endow Totum with so versatil
mind without providing an adequac
OF physical functions and sufficienc
of time to accompany 1t. Had hi
body been at all commensurate wit
his mind, and his life been extende
} over centuries instead Of through
J paltry threescore and ten Mt the ou
side, this world would one day be
very different world than we no
, find it.
But. alas! Totum's carrying power
were no match to his creative. h
died without accomplishing any thinl
He had all through his life "bitten o
t more than he could chaw." He W.
t chewing ever-he absorbed nothing
But Totum was most excelleI
: chewer. Boston Transcript.